Well Read

Just completed Well Read which gives me all my General achievements complete until November. I also completed To All the Squirrels I've Loved Before with the exception of the Steam and Borean Frogs (Wrath) and I also have The Keymaster complete with the exception of the Violet Hold Key (Wrath).

With regards to Quests, I'm at 179/200 daily quests complete (should get that done tomorrow) and I'm up to 2,037g out of 10,000g from The Bread Winner. For my Classic Quests, I'm sitting at 565/730 for the Loremaster of Kalimdor. The Burning Crusade quests are complete.

All my exploration is complete with the exception of Medium Rare. Not quite sure when I'll be able to complete that one. It's a pretty tough one to do as some of the mobs don't spawn for days.

Left for the Classic Dungeons & Raids - LBRS, Dire Maul, Onyxia, AQ40.
Left for Burning Crusade Dungeons & Raids - Heroic Slave Pens, Heroic Underbog, Heroic Mana-Tombs, Heroic Auchenai Crypts, Heroic Durnholde, Heroic Sethekk Halls, Heroic Black Morass, Heroic Mechanar, Heroic Botanica, Heroic Magister's Terrace, Tempest Keep, Hyjal, Black Temple and Sunwell Plateau.

Cooking Profession is done until Wrath. Fishing I still need to win the Booty Bay contest (but can't do so until I'm on good terms with them again), catch the rare fish, find Old Ironjaw, and fish up Gahz'ranka and the Lurker Below. First Aid is done until Wrath.

Working my way to 25 exalted reputations now. For classic reputations I need Zandalar, Hydraxian and Brood of Nozdormu. For Burning Crusade I need Keepers of Time, Lower City, Ashtongue Deathsworn, Scale of the Sands, and I need to defeat Capt. Skyshatter.

I won't even go into what I need for PvP because it's a lot!

Total achievement points: 2625

What a Weekend

Wow, quite an action packed weekend in the world of Azeroth. The scourge invasion has been taken to another level with the appearance of floating Necropoli and Phosphorex and I had a great time battling back the invaders and looking for our Undead Slaughtering gear (unfortunately no cloth drops of the 6 we've seen). The best part of the Scourge invasion is the return of the Argent Dawn Quartermasters. And with those quartermasters returns the Tabard of the Argent Dawn. This puts me at 16 tabards, quite a nice count on my way towards 25.

Also this weekend, Tenris Mirkblood popped up in Karazhan so the Gold Team quickly assembled to bring him down. What a surprise to find a cute little Vampiric Batling on him! I had no idea he would give me pet #78, but I'm not complaining. I love the little guy.

When Phosphorex and I had a lull in our scourge killing, we quickly hit up Heroic Ramparts and Blood Furnace. With the help of a couple Honor Hold Favors, I have reached exalted with my 23rd faction and I was able to pick up a new enchanting recipe and a new tabard. Now I just need some more Lower City and Keepers of Time rep to achieve The Burning Crusader and 25 Exalted Reputations in one fell swoop.

The weekend also took me to Kalimdor as I work on the Loremaster achievement. Some work was also put in on fishing in Ironforge for Old Ironjaw. This evening, back to Kalimdor after doing my dailies and fight back the scourge when they appear.

Raider Tiddlywinks?

Last night was pretty fun. After clearing the four bosses in Zul'Aman on Wednesday, it was a nice change of pace to head into Ahn'Qiraj with the guild to earn the achievement Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj. I was also hoping to pick up my Band of Vaulted Secrets and Drape of Vaulted Secrets to go along with the Blade of Vaulted Secrets I already have in my bank with a wonderful glow from Potency on it.

After quickly blowing through AQ and getting Flamehelix his blacksmithing recipes, I took some time to do the Outlands dailies, earned a bit of gold, and then was summoned to finish Zul'Aman from the night before. We quickly annihilated Malacrass and Zul'Jin and I got the achievement, Zul'Aman. Two of the tougher raiding achievements down, quite a few more to go. I just have AQ40 and Ony to complete Classic Raider.

Tonight, I will get 1,000 Fish as I went to bed last night sitting at 999/1000. Still no Ironjaw for me though after well over 1,000 casts in Ironforge. Going to keep working on it though. I'm also at about 600g and plan on achieving My Sack is "Gigantique" once I have 1200g for the bag. I also hope to be able to complete Loremaster of the Eastern Kingdoms at some point this weekend after I run Uldaman and BRD (where I have about 10 quests through chains to complete). Then I'm not sure what I'll be doing - there's a couple low level dungeons to explore, and then some level 60 dungeons that Phosphorex and I want to conquer. Also, the drop rate on the Deathcharger's Reins have been increased, so Phos and I might be in Scholo quite a bit this weekend.

Great Achievements

Last night, I got two awesome achievements done. The first will result in me getting my Hallowed title. Right when I awoke, Xenoxa wanted to run the Horseman - and of course I was ready to go. We quickly found a tank, assembled some other DPS and went to the Monastery.

Four of us made it there quickly and while we waited for the fifth to arrive, Xenoxa and I decided to raise our unarmed skill a little with some Spirit Boxing.


After our fifth arrived, we had five shots at the boss, and on the fifth...he dropped...the one...the only...the Sinister Squashling!

We all rolled for it and wouldn't you know, I rolled a 1. Luckily, the great people of the greatest guild in the land, even though they rolled higher, gave the pet to me! I love you guys. DarkLight Resolution is the greatest bunch of people I've had the pleasure to group with. So we ported out (bonus points if you can tell where I ported to) and I took some pictures with my new pet:



He's just so amazing as he collapses into a jack-o-lantern if you're not moving for a while, and his short legs have to work overtime to keep up with you while you're on a mount. This addition brings me to 77 of 88 pets! And I love them all.

Following the Horseman runs, I got back into my regular schedule and went off and did my dailies. Utilizing money made from the dailies, I bought mounts #47, #48, #49, and #50 giving me the awesome achievement, Leading the Cavalry. My new Albino Drake is amazing, but he was unwilling to pose for any photos last night, so hopefully I'll get those up soon. The guild was quite impressed with my latest achievement and I'm working my way up on the Loremaster achievements.

I now have 2 quests to do in BRD, 4 to do in Uldaman, and a couple of those are chains, so hopefully I'll get much closer to the 700 (I'm currently stuck at 686/700 quests). I might have some time to complete those quests tonight providing the instances cooperate. After I complete the Eastern Kingdoms, I might head to Kalimdor, but there are other achievements I'd like to complete - most notably Old Ironjaw.

Darn You Squashling!

I got nine more attempts at the Headless Horseman yesterday (bringing my total to 24), and still no Squashling. Have seen the Hallowed Helm drop twice (I already had it from last year), so I keep going telling everyone I pass on EVERYTHING except the squashling. Then yesterday, right as I woke up, I see my friend Phosphorex complete the Sinister Calling achievement. DARN YOU!

So once I got my Horseman runs out of the way, it was back to achievements. I'm up over 2,400 points now and working towards the Loremaster achievements. Right now I stand at 668/700 on the Eastern Kingdoms with a few more areas to explore. I have some chains to finish up in Uldaman and other random quests I've been finding with the Low Level Quest tracking option. However, I fear I'm going to run out of quests to do just short of 700. I'm trying to think of lesser known quest locations, but haven't thought of any yet (though I did find a nice one in Loch Modan during my explorations).

After the Eastern Kingdoms, I'll head to Kalimdor and scrounge for quests there. I know there's still a lot I didn't do on Azuremyst and the Night Elf starting zone. I did quite a few while working my rep up to exalted with those factions, but never did all of them. I'm also doing about 20 dailies a day as I work to buy more and more mounts. I believe I'm at 43 or so with only expensive mounts to buy from here on out.

After those achievements, I'll probably get back to fishing towards 1,000 fish and keep trying to get Old Ironjaw - can't believe I haven't found him yet in over 700 casts. I was able to complete Outland Gourmet and have done all the cooking quests available to me until Northrend.

On a side note, I wish there were a way to look up leaders in achievement points on servers, or at least know where you stand with respects to others on the server. I keep on comparing achievements to those around me and see 600, 900, some up around 1500, even some near 2000, but I haven't really seen anyone near 2500 yet. Phosphorex said he saw someone over 2500, so I know I still have some work to do - and if I can quickly get some heroics out of the way, I'll blow by 2,500. But it's just annoying at the present time to not really know how well you're doing. I imagine I'm probably near the top on the server with all of my grinding pre-achievements. However, I still have quite a few achievements to work on that I'm certain others easily picked up if they were dedicated to rep and grinds like I was pre-patch. So now I'm working towards 3,000 achievement points and 300/750 total achievements. Up up and away!

All Hallow's Eve

I woke up today and started fishing in Ironforge for Old Ironjaw - and then I saw it - Trick or Treat! And so it begins. I quickly set off and found the treats in the Ironforge in and started to get a group going for the Headless Horseman. We traveled to Goldshire, picked up the quest and then trekked up to the Scarlet Monastery. All told, after completing the quest and switching people out for others, we had 13 tries on him (he bugged out on one). In the 13 tries, we of course got a ton of rings, three brooms, one Hallowed Helm, and no squashlings.

I shall try again tomorrow I guess, but with the achievement Sinister Calling, I fear there will be more competition than usual for my pet. Luckily, as long as I run with the guild, I might get lucky as people there know I'm a pet collector, but I don't want to deprive them of their achievements, so it's a fine line to walk. They really need to increase the drop rate if they want people to get the Hallowed title.

After fighting the Horseman, I plan on traveling the world to trick and treat and also do whatever other achievements pop up for me.

Explorer...

Finished up all the exploration achievements tonight. Also did a couple of the fishing ones. Lastly, I ended the night with Captain Rumsey's Lager. That got me to 200/750 achievements and 2,095 points. Lots to do this weekend!

I also got most, but not all of my pets back in the mail after they got lost in the nether. I'll figure out which ones are missing and request them tomorrow.

Pets & Mounts

Along with my fun with achievements last night, I also earned my 11th "Feat of Strength" - Big Blizzard Bear. And boy is he big. I can't get through any doors with him and that murloc on the front just needs to be punted away. I have to say though, despite the murloc, he looks pretty darn cool.


A couple of nights ago, I also put all of my pets into my own personal zoo and was rewarded by Breanni, my favorite gnome vendor, with Stinker. Unfortunately, I forgot to pose with him, but here's the wonderful letter Breanni wrote to me.